Gold May Glitter, Revenge Shines Brighter
by SJlikeslists
Summary: Whispers always swirled around Blaise Zabini's mother. She found that to be a useful distraction to those that might pry too deeply into her true motivation.


Disclaimer: _Harry Potter_ is not mine.

She had nearly gone giddy with her planning. It was an emotion that was very unlike her; she did not believe that giddy had ever been a word that could have described her emotions or actions on any previous occasion. It was simply not in the realm of the done thing in which she had been reared. The women in her family prided themselves on their levelheadedness. This, however, was a very special circumstance. She told herself that the upswing in unexpected emotions was pardonable given that. She was fairly certain that the majority of it was internally contained - her husband had not acknowledged that he sensed anything amiss in the hours that she had spent in his company. (Other than that, there were only the elves to witness, and elves did not betray their master's secrets.)

She had spent the whole of the previous evening plotting and pondering and deciding on details inside the confines of her head. She had thought of nothing else since she had learned the news. She had nearly caved in her resolution of waiting and told him a multitude of times (she had almost run out the door behind him in a most undignified manner to tell him this morning when he was leaving to go to work). She wanted to tell. She wanted to share. The words were bubbling up in her and wanted nothing more than to escape, but she held them back. This was an event; this was a cherished event. It needed due ceremony, and she would make sure that due ceremony there was when she made her announcement. So, she refrained from saying the words. She held back the impulse. She spent her day on arranging the details that she had remained awake well into the previous night working toward the perfection of rather than sending off an owl asking him to come home earlier than usual. She would not be sending an owl. She would not be asking him home early. She would not disrupt the normal pattern of his day until he walked into the setting that she had chosen. She had waited this long. She would continue to wait. Everything was going to be perfect. Everything was going to go according to plan.

She had thought (briefly) of sending a message to her mother, but she had decided against the impulse. They were on passable terms again (the slight of being told that it was disappointing that she had made an acceptable match rather than a stellar one still stung but was being overlooked for public perception purposes), but she would not give her the satisfaction of being the first person that she told. Her husband would be first. That was as it should be; that was where her loyalties were now (no matter what comments on that topic were subtly and not so subtly thrown her way).

The dinner (all of his favorites) had been ordered, prepared, and was waiting to be placed on the table. The dining room was arranged to all of her specifications with a collection of candles just waiting for her cue to the house-elves to light them. It looked just like she had pictured it in her head. The whole evening was going to go just as she had pictured it in her head. It was going to be beautiful. This would be a night which they would always remember. He would be so pleased. He would be so surprised. It would be worth all of the biting of her tongue that she had been engaging in since she had realized that they were to have a baby to have the picture perfect moment of memory to keep for years to come of the expression in his eyes in the light of the candles as he registered what it was that she was telling him. The feelings of giddiness rose up in her again at just the thought of it.

He was late getting home, but that was not unusual. He often went out to clients' homes and stayed longer than expected. People liked to chat as they arranged their financial matters (and goblins did not take meetings outside of Gringotts for anything less than an epic occasion). Therefore, the nongoblin employees took the appointments with those who could not trouble themselves to venture outside of their homes. He chuckled over the fact that he was ensured job security on the basis that both goblins and wizards felt entitled to their pride. She had always waited patiently - knowing that there would be a story of someone's sense of their own importance for him to regale her with while he ate when he finally arrived. Tonight, she found it more difficult to be patient, but there was little choice.

When the bell sounded announcing that someone had come calling, she was annoyed more than anything. It was hardly the appropriate time of day for an unannounced visit (not that there was really such a thing as an appropriate time of day for an unannounced visit - they were an ill-mannered undertaking at any time). Her perfect evening had no place in it for interruptions, and she was half tempted to lock down the wards.

Her annoyance changed to something else when the elf informed her that an Auror was waiting for her in the drawing room. She refused to name to herself what that something else was because to give it a name would be to make it real. There was nothing about what was happening that was allowed to be real. She was to have an evening of perfection with her husband culminating in the announcement of her pregnancy. She was not supposed to be receiving an unwelcome guest who could have come only to bring her bad news of some sort. Nighttime visits from Ministry employees did not bring pleasant tidings.

This was not how she had seen things in her head. This is not what all of her careful planning had been for, and it was not the way that things should have been. Nothing was ever going to be the way that it should have been again.

She stood still and silent (with nothing in her expression or her posture to indicate that she was being told anything more interesting or world shattering than the state of the weather outside) during the entirety of the interview. The information flowed over her and settled somewhere in the back of her mind for review at a later time (a time when she was not busy ensuring that the public proprieties were preserved). The words played over her about Gringotts' business and private home meetings and attacks and phrases like wrong place at the wrong time and very sorry and she gave no response to any of them. The owl carrying the letter of condolence from her husband's employer arrived while the Auror was still speaking and provided her with the perfect excuse for her to dismiss him from her presence.

It would seem that the goblins wasted no time. She was far too numb to resent that they had obviously known before she had. She retreated to her rooms as soon as the man had gone and the letter had been read. She sank onto the bed and ordered the single elf that had followed her to leave her be. The dinner went uneaten. The candles remained unlit. Her news went untold. All of her plans for the evening had turned to vapor around her and all of her dreams for the future had dissipated with them.

There was nothing quite like a house-elf to ensure that you could remain successfully locked away from anything from which you might wish to be locked away. Her orders were curt and hastily given. They were followed impeccably. They turned away all comers - visitors of all kinds, condolence offerers, and meddlesome persons who wanted to catch a glimpse of how the grieving widow was faring to spread around over their next lull in conversation over tea. Her mother and the rest of her family were barred from entering as well. She saw no one. She wanted to see no one. She wanted to be left alone. There was nothing outside the confines of her rooms that she needed, wanted, or had any intention of involving herself in again. She could see nothing beyond the immediate moment. She could see nothing but the carefully planned conversation that was never going to happen.

She spent hours upon hours sitting in the cushioned chair in the corner with her hands folded over her stomach as she whispered words of reassurance to the baby telling him that they would be fine - that everything would be fine. She doubted that the baby believed her; she did not believe herself. She kept saying the words despite those doubts. She had nothing else on which she could pin her hold to mental stability. It would be so easy to slip into the darkness of the great void of nothing that she could see hovering around the edges of her vision waiting for her to give in and stop holding back from allowing it to overtake her. It would be so, so easy. It would be so, so wrong. There was still the baby.

There was the baby that rested nestled underneath the spot where her hand rested - still safe, still present, still needing her. The baby that she had never managed to tell him of had not gone anywhere. The baby was still coming. She still needed to remember and think about the baby.

She told him that he was safe. She told him how much he was wanted. She could say those things with conviction. Minutes stretched into hours. Hours stretched into days. Days stretched into weeks. Weeks stretched into months. The more time that went by, the less her voice wavered when she told him that they would be fine. He moved beneath her hand when she spoke, and his acknowledgement of her words moved her to greater conviction.

She left her rooms. She went to the rest of the house. She spent days letting memories from the various furnishings assault her, and she taught herself to display nothing but exterior calm when they did. She walked through the gardens next and began to take strolls down the lane. Eventually, she ventured further afield - Gringotts, shops - places where she was confronted with the noise and impertinent questions of people. She did the women of her family proud with the manner in which she conducted herself in public, yet all visitors were still summarily turned away. She would suffer no outside intruders in her sanctuary. It was her home; it had been their home. No one else would ever be welcome.

The baby arrived when he was good and ready (as babies are want to do). He did not cry (she was told that it was a common reaction to being born, but the silence seemed appropriate to her). He blinked his eyes (his father's eyes) and calmly took in the world around him. It was a strange picture that he made - her husband's eyes set in the frame of a variation of her own features.

Looking down at him wrapped up in her arms, her heart hurt in a way that was different than any of the grief she had already experienced. She was aching for her little boy and everything that had been taken from him the night that his father had not come home. She was regretting the future that had been stolen from him, and she was angry in her regret. It was not the passionate type of anger that demanded raised voices and shattering glass. It was a quiet sense of fury that embedded itself deeply in her soul and demanded things to devour.

A sudden instant of clarity struck out of nowhere. She knew exactly what it was that she should do - what it was that she would do. There would be no more passive nights spent in regrets. There would be no more unresolved debts owed to her child. She would exact retribution. She would make them pay for what they had taken.

She gives herself six days of solitude with her baby while she talks to him of the possibilities and lets his watching eyes and soft noises keep her company through the early stages of making her plans. Then, she moves.

She is back in society as if she had never vacated it in the first place. She is composed and put together with just the right calculated amount of aloofness. Where she goes and who she sees is structured and planned. Every move she makes is chosen well in advance - like a well-played game of chess. (It is ironic that she had always found the game too dull to learn.) She is enigmatic and bestows her attention and her conversation sparingly. They are drawn to her like moths to the proverbial flame. They do not even know why they are coming. Others may whisper, but they can place nothing of specific blame at her feet. Everyone admits that they come to her - not the other way around. She does nothing to curtail the whispers. She welcomes their existence (even if she never deigns to acknowledge to others that she is aware that they exist). She wants them to whisper. She wants them to talk. She wants them to speculate. As long as they are so occupied, the truth will remain outside the lines of their vision.

She feels no rush of emotion when she realizes that she has been successful. There is only the calm contentment of a job well done. There is only the pleasure she takes in the personal satisfaction of knowing that the loss from her son's life is being avenged (by all those who had a hand in the larger scheme that led to the event as the exact names of those involved are beyond her ability to discover).

She has buried the first before Blaise's first birthday. The two of them celebrate the occasion (both occasions though her son does not know it) alone in quiet happiness while the clucking tongues and whispered rumors fly outside of their walls. He is too young for it to matter. Someday, he will need to maintain his composure in the face of the words that will be thrown in his direction. She will teach him aloofness. She will teach him to never let anyone see. She has time. For the night of his birthday, they simply eat cake together while the portrait of his father presides over the end of the table.

She can do this. She is confident now. She will continue. She will prevail, but she will take a few weeks to just be with her son before she moves forward again.

She is just married for the third time when the one they call the Dark Lord falls. (She cares nothing for their titles or their politics or their plans. She cares only for the damage that has been done to her.) She watches carefully to see what will happen in the aftermath. She is not surprised when she discerns how it will all play out. It becomes clear in the course of a few weeks that nothing has changed for her - the claims of imperious curses and the dropping of charges fly faster than even the most dedicated of gossips can follow. The weary public is far too accepting of those in their midst who never should have received pardon. Her way forward is clear. She continues her work. She continues her plans. She adjusts the order of precedence of her lists based on the respective rising and falling of various houses and their relative importance as a scrambling for position amongst the rats fleeing the sinking ship ensues.

The goblins of Gringotts deserve far more credit than they ever receive. She realizes this as she settles affairs after the "untimely" demise that has made her thrice widowed. It dawns on her that the goblins with which she does business have always referred to her as Madame Zabini. She has carried two other names in the years since her son was born, but the goblins have never used either of them. It had never occurred to her to notice until she was contemplating a compilation of out of the normal realm for goblins behavior after she received an incline of the head from her account manager in greeting. Now that she is paying attention, she recognizes the measure of respect in his eyes as he waves her into a chair. She concludes her business for the day and retreats back to the sanctuary of her home (their home, not the place where she had dwelt with her third husband) to arrange her thoughts and ponder. She puts Blaise to bed and pours herself a glass of something stronger than tea as she curls into his father's favorite chair in an utterly undignified posture as she considers what she knows as well as what she thinks she may now know.

She decides that it makes sense - if you can consider it from a goblin point of view. The nights that her husband offered explanations for the ways that goblins view things differently (and the importance of understanding those views if one was going to successfully work with them) had not been in vain. She remembered, and she could apply the pertinent pieces. Her husband's death was not merely world shattering for herself and their son - it was an insult to the goblins. He was on goblin business when he was attacked, and goblins have little enough tolerance for mere interruptions in their business (let alone an assault on an agent acting in their stead). That one of their employees was lost while on an official visit in the act of conducting actual Gringotts' business is not something that the goblins will be inclined to forget. Goblins have long memories, and forgiveness is a foreign concept to them. Goblins believe in restitution. Goblins believe in revenge. For them, it is practically an art form.

They recognize what she is doing, and they approve. They will keep her secrets for they are allies of a sort. She finds that it does not trouble her that they know. She finds that it does not trouble her that she has an appreciative yet silent group of spectators. She has a long list of names to work her way through, and she is not sorry to know that she is not standing alone.


End file.
